Prakash Nayak
1
The train had rattled away hours ago, leaving Dr. Ananya Menon with only the crash of waves and the whisper of palms for company as she entered the fishing village that would become her temporary home. She had come armed with her instruments, notebooks, and the absolute conviction that science could measure everything worth knowing. Yet on her very first evening, as the sea winds thickened with the smell of brine and the restless stir of a storm brewing beyond the horizon, she noticed how the fishermen paused in their work, speaking in hushed tones as if wary of the night itself. Lanterns flickered along the thatched huts, and men gathered on the sand, mending nets with hands that trembled slightly when thunder rolled. It was there, seated among them with the familiarity of someone who had lived a lifetime by the sea, that Kochappan, the eldest fisherman, leaned forward and began to tell her the story. His voice was like the tide—slow, deliberate, carrying old weight. He spoke of a bride long drowned, a young woman dressed in red who had been promised to the sea by accident or by fate, and who now returned whenever storms gathered, her bangles clinking, her hair dripping with seawater. “She comes for the men,” he said, staring into the dark surf, “and drags them into her wedding bed beneath the waves.” The others nodded, silent, their eyes turned toward the restless sea.
Ananya, who had heard countless tales of river goddesses and restless spirits during her fieldwork across Kerala, smiled politely but did not let her skepticism hide. Folklore, she thought, was a form of poetry woven into the fabric of hardship, an explanation the human mind clung to when death came suddenly and violently. Storms claimed lives in fishing communities with brutal regularity, and myths offered something to soften that cruelty. “Stories keep grief alive as though it still has work to do,” she noted in her journal later that evening, scribbling in her precise, slanting hand by the dim light of her aunt Leela’s oil lamp. Yet there was something in the way Kochappan’s eyes gleamed, clouded by age but sharpened by conviction, that unsettled her briefly. His gnarled fingers tapped his cane on the earth as if punctuating a warning, and though Ananya dismissed his words aloud, her chest carried the faintest shiver. Outside, the wind had thickened; waves slapped against the shore with mounting fury, and the smell of wet earth mingled with the heavy perfume of night-blooming jasmine curling in from Leela’s courtyard.
Sleep did not come easily that night. Ananya tossed in her narrow bed, listening to the storm gathering like a drumbeat across the sea. She told herself it was the unfamiliar sounds—the tin roof creaking under the pressure of the wind, the call of nightjars, the crash of waves louder than she was used to in Kochi—that kept her awake. Yet when she did drift into slumber, the village tales seemed to seep into her dreams. She found herself walking along a darkened beach, the moon obscured by swollen clouds, her feet sinking into wet sand. Ahead, faint anklet bells jingled against the rhythm of the waves. The sound grew louder, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once, until she could feel the vibration against her skin. A figure hovered at the edge of her vision—a woman in red, dripping as if she had stepped straight out of the sea, her face hidden but her presence suffocating. The air thickened with the fragrance of jasmine, sharp and cloying, mixing with salt so pungent it burned her throat. Ananya woke with a start, heart hammering, and for a moment she swore she could still hear the anklets echoing in her room, a metallic whisper against the storm outside. She forced a laugh at her own mind’s trickery, but even as she reached for her notebook to ground herself in reason, her hand trembled slightly, and the ink bled across the page as though dampened by seawater.
2
The following morning broke with a deceptive calm, the kind of quiet that comes after a storm, when the sea wears an expression of innocence as though nothing violent had ever passed through it. Ananya, restless from her unsettling dream, threw herself into work. She accompanied Ravi, a wiry young fisherman with the easy gait of one who had grown up on rocking boats, out onto the water. The sky was pale, streaked with long gray clouds, and the sea shimmered with subdued energy beneath it. She busied herself with her instruments, dipping a sonar device into the water, recording fish migration patterns, and taking notes with meticulous care. For her, this was the language of truth—numbers, readings, and observable behavior. Yet even as she focused on her research, the rhythm of Ravi’s oar strokes and the endless stretch of the horizon lulled her into a strange half-awareness. She found herself glancing often at the water, her mind replaying the dream of anklets and jasmine she had tried so hard to dismiss. The ocean seemed to breathe that morning, rising and falling with a cadence that was almost human, and in its restless sighs, she thought she heard whispers.
It was then, as she steadied her instrument to take another reading, that her eyes caught movement near the shoreline. A figure stood knee-deep in the surf, clad in a red saree so drenched it clung like second skin to her body. Long, wet hair cascaded down her back in tangled sheets, strands of seaweed twisting through it as if the sea had braided her. The woman’s posture was both sorrowful and commanding, as though she belonged to the water yet resisted it, half-torn between shore and ocean. Ananya blinked hard, her rational mind snapping to alertness, searching for explanations: perhaps it was a villager bathing, perhaps a cloth caught on driftwood, distorted by distance. But no explanation sat right, not when the figure’s head tilted slightly toward her, and even at that distance, Ananya could swear those eyes—dark, heavy, salt-laden—were fixed directly on her. Her breath hitched. She turned to Ravi quickly, pointing to the shore. “Do you see her?” she asked, her voice tighter than she intended. Ravi followed her gaze, his expression blank, then puzzled. “See what?” he said, though his knuckles whitened around the oar, and his body tensed like a bowstring drawn too far. When she insisted, pointing again at the unmistakable splash of red against gray waves, he only shook his head firmly, muttering something under his breath, words that sounded like a prayer.
Ananya laughed then, too sharply, as though the sound itself could slice through the thickening dread in her chest. “A mirage,” she said, though the explanation rang hollow in her own ears. She busied herself with her notebook, refusing to meet Ravi’s eyes, who rowed harder now, his jaw set, his gaze fixed stubbornly on the water. Yet when her pen touched the page, her hand seemed to move with a will not her own. Line after line formed, fluid and urgent, until she looked down to see the unmistakable outline of a woman sketched across her page—a tall figure in a saree, hair streaming like kelp, bangles glinting faintly against her wrist. She stared at it in disbelief, her rational mind grasping for control: it was just her imagination, fed by Kochappan’s tales and her restless dream. Still, when she looked up again, the shoreline was empty, the surf crashing innocently as if no one had ever been there. Ravi remained silent, his hands steady but his face pale, as though he too had felt a presence he could not name. The oar dipped into the water again and again, slicing through the sea’s calm surface, but for Ananya, the waves seemed to carry a new heaviness, as though beneath them lay truths far older, far darker, than her science could measure.
3
The evening air in the village carried the briny tang of the sea and the slow rhythm of waves folding onto the shore, as if the ocean itself was waiting for Kochappan to speak. The elder sat cross-legged on the veranda of a tea shop, his weathered skin etched with the deep lines of age and salt. Around him, fishermen huddled with steaming cups, their eyes fixed on him as though his voice was an anchor holding their fears in place. Ananya, notebook balanced on her knee, leaned forward, trying to filter myth from memory. Kochappan’s voice was gravelly, but steady, each word drawn out like a net cast into water. He spoke of Nila, a young bride from the village, adorned in red silk and jasmine flowers, whose laughter once rang as brightly as temple bells. On her wedding night, she boarded a small catamaran with her groom to cross the backwaters toward his ancestral home. But the sky turned without warning, and a cyclone struck with fury. Waves rose higher than houses, winds tore at the earth, and the frail catamaran shattered beneath their feet. By dawn, the sea had returned to calm, and the villagers found Nila’s body tangled in seaweed, her saree sodden, her bangles cracked. Her groom, though spared, carried the mark of survivor’s guilt like a wound none could see.
Kochappan’s tale darkened as he described what followed. The groom lingered in the village for a short while, hollow-eyed, wandering the shore at night as though expecting Nila to rise from the waves. Then, one day, he too vanished. Some claimed he walked into the water and was taken; others whispered the bride herself had claimed him for deserting her in the moment of death. But even after his disappearance, the sea did not rest. Fishermen began to vanish during storms, men strong and experienced, who had weathered a hundred tides before. They were last seen walking into the waves or leaning over their boats as though enchanted by something invisible. “It was her,” Kochappan said, lowering his voice until the younger men leaned closer. “Nila returned, soaked in her wedding clothes, anklets jingling, jasmine dripping, searching for her groom—or anyone who would stand in his place.” To appease her, the villagers had devised rituals: at the first signs of a storm, women floated brass lamps into the waters, each lamp carrying jasmine flowers and small mirrors tied to them. The flowers were offerings of remembrance, the mirrors meant to distract the bride with her own reflection, so she might linger long enough for the fishermen to return safely. Every lamp on the water was a prayer that she would be satisfied, that her hunger would not reach further that night. The younger fishermen shifted uneasily at these words, their hands tightening around their cups as though bracing against the memory of storms.
Ananya wrote quickly, her pen scratching across the page, recording every detail with the dispassionate precision of a scientist cataloguing folklore. Yet inwardly, she dismissed the story as little more than grief spun into legend, a way for the villagers to make sense of the merciless sea. She thought of cyclones and shifting currents, of the brutal mathematics of survival at sea, where a single moment of imbalance could swallow a life whole. To her, Nila was not a ghost but a symbol, an echo of human loss transformed into superstition. These floating lamps, with their flowers and mirrors, were rituals of comfort, not protection. As she looked up from her notes, she noticed the reverence in the fishermen’s eyes, the solemnity in Kochappan’s voice, and realized her skepticism set her apart from them more than any academic degree ever could. Still, she held onto it, as though disbelief were a shield against the encroaching darkness of the tale. “It’s a beautiful story,” she said finally, her voice carefully neutral, and she closed her notebook with a quiet snap. But long after she returned to her aunt’s house, the image lingered in her mind: a drowned bride drifting among waves lit by lamps, reaching for reflections that could never answer her. And though Ananya told herself it was only a metaphor, her fingers itched to open the notebook again, to read Kochappan’s words as though they carried something heavier than myth.
4
That night, the sea would not leave Ananya alone. Though she tried to lull herself to sleep by reading her research notes under the dim light of a kerosene lamp, her thoughts snagged again and again on the figure she had glimpsed in the waves. The red of the saree seemed etched into her mind like a stain she could not scrub away, and the scratch of her pen against paper only deepened her awareness of silence in the small room. Outside, the wind rattled the shutters, bringing with it the smell of salt and damp earth. Leela’s soft snore in the next room should have been comforting, but instead it underscored her solitude, the way the night seemed alive with watchful eyes. When she finally let exhaustion pull her under, it was not into rest but into a dream that unfurled like a net dropped into dark waters, drawing her into places she had never chosen to go. She found herself standing barefoot on wet sand, the sky above torn with clouds, the surf clawing at her ankles. A woman’s silhouette formed at the waterline, shimmering as though the sea itself had shaped her. With every roll of thunder, the figure came closer, dripping, bangles clinking faintly like distant temple bells, until Ananya could feel the air change—thick, briny, unbreathable.
The woman’s face was obscured, veiled in wet strands of hair, but her presence carried a sorrow so heavy it pressed against Ananya’s ribs. When she spoke, it was not with the shriek of ghosts Ananya had read about in village folklore but with a soft, steady murmur that seemed to seep directly into her ear: “My wedding is unfinished.” The words rippled through her body like a current, and suddenly her wrists burned with unfamiliar weight. She looked down to see glass bangles circling them—green, red, and gold—that glittered even as water lapped higher and higher against her body. She clawed at them, but they would not break; instead, they clinked with every movement, mocking her efforts. Then, as if the sea had been waiting for her acknowledgment, a great wave surged forward and dragged her under. Water filled her nose, her throat, her lungs; her body twisted in the cold pull of the tide. The woman in red was beside her, hand gripping her arm with bridal henna still etched on her skin, her eyes wide and unblinking. In the muffled roar of the ocean, Ananya heard that same whisper again and again, broken by sobs she could not see: “My wedding is unfinished. My wedding is unfinished.” The darkness pressed in, and her chest burned as though she were truly drowning.
She awoke with a violent gasp, clawing at her throat, only to find herself back in her room, heart hammering, hair plastered to her face with sweat. For a moment she thought she had freed herself from the nightmare, but then she noticed the smell—thick salt, sharper than anything drifting from the sea outside. Her pillow, she realized, was damp beneath her cheek. Not with sweat, but with cold moisture that clung to the fabric and left her skin clammy. She touched it with trembling fingers, brought them to her nose, and her heart lurched: seawater. The taste of brine still lingered on her lips, as if she had swallowed half the ocean. She sat upright, staring into the shadows of her room, every corner alive with the possibility of something watching. The notebook on her bedside table had fallen open, and though she was certain she had left it blank, now a line had been scrawled across the page in uneven letters that bled with moisture: My wedding is unfinished. For the first time since she had arrived, Ananya felt the armor of reason slip from her. The sea, she realized, had followed her into sleep, into her very room, and no amount of science could explain the salt now staining her sheets.
5
The morning sun broke through a haze of mist, casting the sea in shades of silver and gray. Ananya, restless from the damp-pillow night, found Ravi waiting near the shore with his boat ready, but his face lacked its usual bold grin. He looked older that day, shoulders hunched as though the ocean itself had weighed them down. As they pushed into the water, silence stretched between them, broken only by the dip of oars and the distant cries of gulls. Finally, as though unable to hold it any longer, Ravi spoke. His words came haltingly at first, then spilling faster with the urgency of confession. Years ago, during the height of a cyclone, his elder brother Arun had gone missing. He had been seen standing on the beach, soaked to the bone, staring into the waves with a strange, rapt expression. Witnesses swore they heard him whispering to someone—a bride in red, though no one else could see her. He had stepped forward, calling out a name the sea swallowed, and was gone. The search lasted days, but the only thing found was his silver locket, washed ashore tangled in seaweed. Ravi’s voice cracked as he finished, his eyes refusing to meet hers. “It was her,” he said with finality, “the saltwater bride. She chose him. And when she chooses, no man comes back.”
Ananya listened, the story pressing uncomfortably against her own unspoken fears from the night before. Yet she clung stubbornly to her training, to the comfort of logic. She told him loss often creates visions in the minds of the grieving, that trauma shapes memory into myth. Storms disorient, winds howl like voices, salt blinds the eyes—such conditions could make anyone believe they saw a figure in the waves. She spoke of sonar mapping and tidal currents, of how science could explain the mysteries of disappearances at sea. Pulling her notebook from her bag, she outlined her plan: they would record underwater soundscapes, track migratory shoals, study the shifting wave patterns during storm cycles. If the villagers believed something supernatural lurked in the water, then perhaps these records could prove otherwise, shedding light on what truly lured men into dangerous currents. “Data doesn’t lie,” she insisted, her pen scratching furiously across the page. Ravi, however, remained unmoved. He rowed harder, his jaw tight, eyes fixed on the horizon. After a long pause, he muttered, almost to himself, “You think numbers will hold her back? You think machines can measure grief or hunger? The sea is not yours to measure.” His words were sharp but quiet, carrying both defiance and fear, as though he were scolding not just her but himself for daring to defy the water.
The rest of their outing passed under the weight of unspoken tension. Ananya deployed her instruments carefully, attaching sensors to nets and lowering recorders into the sea, each splash of equipment into the water echoing louder than it should have. She took comfort in the beeps and flashes of her devices, small assurances that at least something in this place could be understood. Yet Ravi’s silence unsettled her, his hands gripping the oar with more force than needed, his eyes flicking now and then toward the horizon where storm clouds were already gathering again. When she finally looked up from her work, she caught him staring at the waves with the same hollow focus he had described in his brother’s last moments, and it sent a chill through her. She wanted to remind him of their shared purpose, to tell him that knowledge was the only way to fight fear, but the words died in her throat when she noticed the muscles in his forearm twitching with tension. For the first time since her arrival, she wondered if her determination to disprove the myth had blinded her to its power—not as a supernatural force, but as something deeper, more insidious. Whether spirit or storm, the bride had already claimed Arun, and Ravi lived with that wound etched into his every movement. As they returned to shore, the air heavy with the taste of coming rain, Ananya realized her science might not just be in conflict with superstition. It might also be in conflict with survival.
6
The rain came down that night in sheets, hammering against the tiled roof of Leela’s house, flooding the narrow lanes until they gleamed like black rivers. Ananya sat by the window, her notebook open on her lap, though the ink ran in jagged lines where her distracted hand had lingered too long. Every gust of wind rattled the shutters, every crash of thunder seemed to echo the rhythm of her own heartbeat. She told herself it was only weather, the monsoon doing what it had always done, but unease had been gnawing at her since Ravi’s confession. When she rose to fetch more paper, her bare feet met the cool dampness of the stone floor, and she froze. Across the courtyard, gleaming in the intermittent flashes of lightning, was a trail of wet footprints. They began at the gate and stretched inward, each print delicate, unmistakably feminine, the shape of anklets pressed faintly in the mud. The prints glistened as though freshly made, though no one had entered, and the rain should have long since washed them away. Ananya’s breath hitched as she called for her aunt. Leela appeared, her weathered face calm, though her eyes tightened when she saw the footprints. With the certainty of someone well-acquainted with the otherworldly, she whispered, “She is seeking shelter. The bride comes where she is remembered.”
Leela moved quickly, her hands sure and practiced. From a small wooden chest, she brought out turmeric, incense sticks, and halves of lime threaded with red string. She laid them at the courtyard’s threshold with a reverence that turned the simple act into ritual. As she lit the incense, the sharp, earthy smoke curled into the damp night air, mingling with the heavy scent of rain. Her lips moved in low chants, words from an old tongue Ananya had never learned, each syllable rolling like waves upon the shore. Ananya watched with arms crossed, trying to mask her unease with skepticism. She told herself this was nothing more than cultural theatrics, the residue of fear passed down through generations of fishermen’s wives and widows. Superstition, she thought, had a way of filling gaps in knowledge, giving shape to the unknown. Yet as the smoke thickened, her skepticism wavered, not because she believed in the ritual but because of the stillness that followed it. The storm outside had not ceased, yet within the courtyard a strange hush settled, the rain muffled as if the air itself were listening. Ananya tried to dismiss the feeling, but she could not deny the sight of her aunt’s steady hands or the certainty in her voice as she placed the final lime wedge by the door, whispering, “Let her pass without entering.”
Then, without warning, the kerosene lamp flickered violently, its flame shrinking and swelling as though tugged by invisible breath. The shadows on the walls danced and warped, lengthening into shapes that seemed almost human before collapsing back into darkness. Ananya felt a sudden chill, the kind that crept beneath her skin, raising the hairs on her arms. The smell came next—not the familiar dampness of the monsoon but the unmistakable fragrance of wet jasmine, cloying and sweet, threading through the house as though someone had just passed wearing it in her hair. It was the same scent from her dreams, the same that had lingered on her damp pillow. Her rational mind struggled to assemble an explanation: perhaps the storm had carried the fragrance from a nearby grove, perhaps the lamp was faulty. Yet the footprints remained in the courtyard, gleaming, refusing to fade beneath the rain. Leela’s chants grew louder, steadier, as if she too sensed the bride hovering just beyond sight. Ananya stood frozen, torn between the world she knew and the one pressing against her senses. And in that charged moment, as the jasmine thickened and the lamp guttered again, she realized with a sharp pang of dread that skepticism alone might not be enough to keep the dripping guest from entering.
7
Sleep took Ananya like a riptide that night, sudden and merciless, dragging her into visions that felt too vivid to be called dreams. She stood once more at the edge of the sea, her feet half-buried in cold, shifting sand. The horizon was split by lightning, and the waves roared as if angry at being confined to their endless cycle. The bride was there, as always—drenched, her red saree clinging to her skin, her anklets chiming faintly with every step forward. But this time, another figure stood apart from her, further up the shore. A man in a torn mundu, his chest bare, his posture rigid, as though he had been waiting for years. His face was blurred by shadow, yet his eyes—dark, sunken, endlessly sorrowful—shone clear, fixed on Ananya with an intensity that froze her in place. Unlike the bride, he made no movement toward her, no plea, no whisper. He simply stared, his silence heavier than the storm winds tearing at the world around them. Between him and the dripping bride stretched an invisible gulf, a distance neither seemed able to cross. And there she was, Ananya, standing in the middle as though she had been summoned to bridge the void between them.
The next morning, shaken and pale, Ananya sought out Kochappan, whose stories the fishermen treated like maps of their past. She recounted the dream hesitantly, speaking of the silent man on the shore. The old man listened without interruption, his eyes narrowing with recognition long before she finished. He spat to the side, a gesture of warding, before he spoke. “That is Arjun,” he said gravely, his voice thick with age and certainty. “The groom who lived when he should have drowned. The gods took pity on him when the storm claimed his bride, but pity turned to curse. He was left behind, alive but never whole, his soul divided from hers. Some say his body roams the land still, hollow-eyed, unable to love again. Others say only his spirit remains, trapped between earth and sea, forever staring after the woman who waits for him in the waters.” He leaned closer, his breath carrying the bitter tang of betel leaf. “The bride calls to men to take his place, to join her in the wedding death denied her. And the groom? He lingers, helpless, watching her hunger grow.” Kochappan’s words sank into Ananya like stones into water. She thought of Ravi’s brother, of her own restless nights, of jasmine and seawater invading her room. Was she now tethered between the two, caught in the pull of a love story that had rotted into curse?
That night, the dream returned, fiercer, clearer. Ananya felt both presences more keenly—the bride with her dripping sorrow, bangles chiming as she whispered of vows unfulfilled, and the groom, silent but relentless in his stare, his grief unspoken yet louder than the sea’s rage. They pulled at her in different ways: the bride beckoned with whispers of completion, her voice wrapping around Ananya like wet silk; the groom anchored her with his gaze, wordless yet demanding she acknowledge his witness to the tragedy. The storm surged higher, waves slamming against her legs, dragging her closer to the bride, while the groom’s silence pressed like an invisible hand on her shoulder, holding her back. She realized then, with a dread that shook her awake, that she was no longer just an observer in their unfinished tale. She was becoming the thread between them, the unwilling vessel for a love story undone by the sea. And as she gasped awake, tasting brine on her lips once more, Ananya understood that the bride no longer came alone—now the groom had returned, and together they had fixed their eyes on her.
8
The sea was restless that night, a heaving expanse of black water that seemed to breathe beneath the boat. Ananya adjusted the sonar equipment with steady hands, though her heart was already racing. Midnight surveys had become routine in her effort to chart migration patterns, but this time the air carried a tautness she could not shake. The moon broke intermittently through heavy clouds, casting streaks of silver that fractured across the waves. Ravi rowed in silence, his eyes fixed on the horizon, his body stiff with unease. Each creak of the oarlocks, each slap of water against the hull seemed magnified, filling the void where conversation should have been. Then, as the boat drifted farther from shore, Ananya saw her. At first, it looked like driftwood or some pale foam caught in the swells. But then the form lifted, unmistakable: a woman’s figure in a drenched red saree, her long hair streaming out behind her, floating as though the sea itself cradled her. Her arms were outstretched, reaching not wildly but deliberately, as if she had been waiting for this precise moment. The sight rooted Ananya to the spot, the scientific part of her brain short-circuiting, unable to explain what her eyes so clearly presented.
Her body moved before her mind caught up, leaning forward as if compelled, drawn to the bride’s open arms. The air tasted of salt and jasmine, thick enough to choke her, and the sound of anklets rang faintly even over the roar of the waves. The edge of the boat pressed against her ribs as she leaned dangerously far, the black water yawning below like a mouth ready to consume her. Then Ravi’s hand clamped onto her arm with desperate strength, yanking her backward so hard she fell onto the wooden planks of the boat. The shock of impact jolted her, breaking the trance—but when she looked up, she saw Ravi himself staring into the water, his expression slack, his lips parted as though answering a call. His eyes shimmered with that same longing Ananya had felt, a hollow ache that beckoned them toward the woman in red. His grip on the oar loosened, his foot shifted forward, inching closer to the edge. For a terrifying instant, Ananya realized she was no longer the only one marked by the apparition’s gaze; the bride had turned her attention to Ravi, pulling at him with the invisible thread of her unfinished vow. The realization cut through Ananya’s lingering haze, and with a burst of strength she seized Ravi by both shoulders, shaking him fiercely until his eyes blinked and his breath hitched, as though waking from deep water.
The boat rocked violently as another wave slammed its side, showering them both in cold spray. The vision had already receded, the bride’s form dissolving into foam and shadow, but her absence felt heavier than her presence. Ananya sat trembling, her hair plastered to her face, her chest heaving with uneven breaths. Ravi stared at her, his expression unreadable, though his hands still shook as he gripped the oar again. Neither of them spoke for a long time, the silence between them more unsettling than the storm itself. Ananya’s mind reeled—not just from the danger she had nearly thrown herself into, but from what she had witnessed in Ravi. The bride’s haunting was not random, nor was it mindless rage. She chose. She reached for them with purpose, testing, beckoning, pulling at whatever wound or emptiness lay within their hearts. It was no longer just a question of belief versus science, of folklore against reason. The spirit was not merely an echo of loss but an active force, discerning, deliberate, seeking. And as the boat rocked its way back toward shore, Ananya shivered with the certainty that she had not simply encountered the Saltwater Bride—she had been marked by her, weighed and measured, and left alive only because the choice had not yet been made.
9
The beach was alive with unease, the air trembling with the approach of another storm. Clouds rolled heavy and dark over the coastline, pressing down on the villagers who gathered with anxious faces, their hands full of flowers, brass lamps, and trays of turmeric and vermillion. Leela’s voice had carried conviction as she explained to Ananya that the haunting could only be ended if the wedding Nila had been denied was completed at last. “The sea must see her wed,” she said, her eyes sharp with both fear and determination. The village priest, his robes damp with sea spray, moved with deliberate solemnity, arranging garlands of jasmine and rows of clay lamps along the sand. Bangles, red and green glass that glittered like drops of blood under the torchlight, were laid carefully on a silken cloth, a bridal dowry for the dead. Ananya watched, caught between skepticism and dread, her notebook forgotten. The rhythmic chanting of the priest wove into the crash of waves, an ancient cadence meant to soothe restless spirits. Yet even as the ritual began, Ananya’s skin prickled, a coldness stealing across her bones, as though the bride’s attention was elsewhere, waiting.
The storm built quickly, clouds tearing open to spill rain in heavy sheets. Lamps sputtered, their flames bending against the wind, yet the villagers pressed on, their chants rising louder, almost frantic. The priest sprinkled holy water onto the sand, calling out to the bride to accept her wedding at last, to release her hunger and return to peace. Leela clutched a garland tightly, lips moving in silent prayer, her eyes darting to the restless sea as if expecting Nila to emerge at any moment. But the waves crashed and receded without yielding a figure, the waters offering nothing but foam. It was then that Ananya felt it—a chill at her side, colder than the rain, heavier than the storm wind. She turned her head, heart hammering, and there she was: the bride in the red saree, dripping, her anklets chiming faintly beneath the roar of the storm. No one else seemed to notice. While the villagers bent toward the ritual fire, the bride leaned close, her presence a suffocating shroud of jasmine and seawater. Her lips parted, and the whisper slid like a blade into Ananya’s ear: “You must be me.” The words coiled inside her, sticky and insistent, as if they had always been there, waiting for her to hear them.
Ananya’s breath caught, her throat tightening as though seawater had filled her lungs. She staggered, clutching at the wet sand for balance, her gaze fixed on the figure only she could see. The villagers continued chanting, oblivious to the true haunting unfolding at her side. The bride’s eyes glowed with a sorrow so sharp it felt like a hook digging into Ananya’s chest, pulling her closer. You must be me. The phrase repeated with every flicker of lightning, with every pulse of her own blood, until it no longer felt like a demand but an inevitability. She thought of the dreams, the bangles clinking on her wrists, the taste of salt on her lips when she woke, the footprints in her aunt’s courtyard. It had never been mere haunting—it had been preparation, a slow weaving of her life into Nila’s unfinished tapestry. Her body trembled, half in fear, half in surrender, as if the line between herself and the bride had thinned to nothing. The storm surged higher, threatening to swallow the beach, and the ritual flames guttered in the wind. Still the villagers sang, believing they were appeasing a ghost far out in the sea, blind to the truth: the Saltwater Bride was here, beside Ananya, choosing her vessel. And in that terrible moment, Ananya realized the ritual would not end the haunting—it was only the beginning of a darker vow.
10
The storm had risen into a frenzy, the waves towering like walls of black glass, each crash echoing like the shattering of temples. Ananya stumbled across the sand, her body no longer entirely her own, her breath ragged with both fear and inevitability. She looked down and saw herself clothed in the red saree she had only ever worn in dreams—the fabric clinging to her like a second skin, heavy with seawater. Bangles rattled on her wrists, their cracked edges biting into her flesh, and her ankles sang with the metallic ring of bridal bells. Her hair streamed behind her, wet and wild, as though the sea itself had combed its fingers through it. Before her stood Ravi, drenched, his eyes wide, his body trembling as though he, too, had been pulled into the ritual without consent. For a moment he seemed every bit the groom she had seen in fractured visions—waiting, broken, terrified. But then the air shifted, and another figure appeared on the sand: a man in a torn mundu, hollow-eyed, his chest rising with the effort of a breath he could not draw. Arjun, the true groom, the one who had survived but been cursed, stood between them. His gaze held the depth of decades, sorrow layered upon sorrow, and for the first time Ananya understood that the bride had not been seeking vengeance, but recognition. Her wedding had never ended. Her vows had never been spoken to completion.
The bride’s cry tore through the storm, a sound both grief-stricken and triumphant, a voice that rattled the bones of everyone on the shore. Villagers who had gathered in the distance fell to their knees, covering their ears, while Ananya stood rooted in place, her body shaking as if the sound came from her own throat. The bride’s dripping figure stood not apart from her but within her, the two of them overlapping, mirrors blurred by water. She could feel the longing in Nila’s bones, the ache of love and betrayal, the endless yearning for a ceremony that had been torn from her. The storm lashed at them as the sea surged forward, swallowing offerings, dragging away the ritual lamps, until only darkness and lightning remained. Ravi called out her name, reaching for her, but his voice was muffled by the roar of waves. Arjun lifted his hand, not to claim, not to pull, but to place it gently in the air between them, a gesture of release, of acknowledgement that he had been both groom and deserter. The bride wailed again, softer this time, the sound breaking into sobs that blended with thunder. For the first time, her unfinished wedding was witnessed, not dismissed as superstition or cloaked in fear. She was no longer unseen. And in that recognition, something unbound her.
The final wave struck with a force like the hand of a god, sweeping across the beach and swallowing everything—the bride, the groom, and Ananya herself. The water closed over her, pressing her down, filling her lungs with salt, the sound of anklets ringing in her ears even as she struggled. She felt herself split between two selves: one drowning, the other watching, both bound to vows that were never hers to make. Lightning cracked above, illuminating the last glimpse of Nila’s face, not monstrous but luminous, her sorrow transformed into something like peace as the sea carried her away. When dawn came, Ananya awoke sprawled on the wet sand, her body bruised, her saree torn, the anklets gone. Ravi knelt nearby, his expression caught between relief and disbelief. The villagers gathered slowly, their whispers rising with astonishment—the sea was calm for the first time in decades, its surface smooth as glass, its hunger stilled. They looked at Ananya with reverence, as though she had bridged the gap between myth and life. Yet as she stood, salt clinging to her lips, she heard it faintly, carried on the retreating tide: the delicate chime of anklets, hidden beneath the sigh of waves. It followed her as she left the shore, a reminder that vows, once spoken or broken, never truly vanish—they linger like the sea itself, eternal and restless, waiting for another storm.
End
